I have recently acquired a set of Ovator S600 with passive crossover. I have previously used S400 in my system. The rest of system is NDS feed from Allo USBbride Signature, 552 with 555PS and NAP 300DR.
I have moved the system from the main living room that had carpeted floor with parquet blocked wood floor on a solid concrete.
The new study space was created by partitioning a double garage and has a concrete floor with wood effect vynil floor planks (similar to wood flooring planks but made from vinyl instead of wood). These are placed with paper based underlay.
The floor space is 4m by 5.5m. The system in placed on one of the 4m wall on 2 racks of Fraim next to each other and S600 are placed on sides of the Fraim.
So right now I am trying to correctly position the speakers. Reading through the previous posts and discussions on this it seems the suggestion is anywhere from 35cm to 85cm from the back wall and plenty room to the side wall - 1.5m.
I also understand that they need firm grounding and the current floor needs to be sorted out. For now I have placed them on a set of 60cm x 60cm porcelain floor tiles that has helped. But when I find the final position, I am planning to drill holes through the flooring to anchor them to the concrete floor below or a similar solution to get them firm support.
The problem I have is I don’t have much room on the sides.
Placing them to close to the back wall (35cm) makes them loose their imaging and they are sounding flat.
Looking for people with experience of S600 on a similar room size and width constraint (4m) to understand how far from the back wall they have got them to be optimal.
I know people experienced with Ovators like DarkeBear have suggested a distance of around 35cm from the back wall in their room, but could it be that the narrower wall I have require them to have more space at the back?
I may be jumping the gun a bit here but i had the same speakers and just couldn’t get them to just work. I had the active version, and a simpler problem with space especially at the sides.
After trying everything i could i finally had to admit to myself that they just didn’t work in my space.
I swapped them for pmc’s fact 12’s that instantly worked so much better.
I know it’s not what you want to hear, but they do need lots of space, and if you can’t give them that, then you are really going to struggle with them.
I had S600 (with nap300) some years back, and in a similar sized room. Sorry to say, I just couldn’t get them to sound anything other than ‘a bit flat’. No amount of position fiddling worked.
I later tried the S400, and they were much more successful in the same room. If we hadn’t moved house I’d probably have kept them.
These are my 600’s in the living room seen from the kitchen / side. The issue with them is that once they get too close to a side wall, their wide dispersion bmrs result somehow in odd reflections which gives a thin sound. Over analytical (it’s like sterile sounding massive headphones) and with an unnatural timbre.
Given that I’ve a bay window on one side, and the kitchen opening on the other side (where I took the picture from) they don’t suffer from these reflections and sound majestic.
I had them in a room like yours - even a bit smaller - and they were good for analytical listening, but not for normal recreative listening.
What I suggest is the following.
Ensure they are firm on their spikes, that matters and makes a difference.
Try to deflect the side wall reflections by using towels / soft cloth / mattress or something like that just to experiment and see if you can get the right sound. If this work, a room correction panel might help you.
They others may be right and the 600 may simply not fit in the room. It’s odd really, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
I would concur with @Ardbeg10y they need room and space from the walls. Someone once posted that a senior Naim guy lamented that they did not sell well due to dealer demo rooms being too small. Well that can be true……but so are customer rooms.
Thank you all for your contributions and sharing the experience.
I have had them for about a week and have been warming them up before any serious listening and fine tuning. They were in storage for at least 6 months and maybe even longer since they were disposed off my relatives of the previous owner because he went to a care home. An indication for some of us if you want to contemplate what will happen to our much loved boxes!
The initial feeling is I like the big scale sound compared to the S400. But there is a kind of resonance at a certain frequency at higher volumes and we are suspecting it is the floor and hoping the firm placement into the concrete floor will fix that. But I need to find the optimum spot for them before I start drilling holes in the floor.
I am currently experimenting with different distances from the back wall and will share my findings here soon. Thanks for everyone’s inputs so far. I will also respond to some of your suggestions.
@Darkebear I know you did very extensive experiments with your various Ovators and I remember reading them in the old forum and they were a good guide for me to setup the S400’s. Alas the old forum cannot be searched for me to find them. If you or anyone who has access to them share the links here, I will appreciate it.
I have recently moved on from Ovator S600 after 2 years use . These were my second pair of Ovators .My first in a different house were passive only . I did not have the amplification they deserved at the time ,a single 250.2 if I remember correct and even a Supernait2 .
Well one can but try . I just remember when any female had to pronounce a word with EE in it ,I winced. I got them cheap ( at the time ) as my dealer just could not move them on .
Fast forward to second attempt .one I only entered into because I was going active with them , My experience with passive linn Isobariks (dire imo ) to active Bricks (revelationary) proves to me that they "could"be a totally different beast . And they are . I did love them .
But the reason to move on was purely that I knew their frequency extremes are a bit limited . My deteriorating high frequency hearing along with the BMR roll off meant I was losing ambiance and atmospherics in my music . They are also not the most extended speaker in the bass dept ,even though they are a large speaker. Also a pain being away from wall
But the bit they do well ,the bit in the middle is really good with voices nice and good dynamics .
I had mine approx 35 cm from rear wall and 130 cm to each side . I can honestly say I enjoyed them …most of the time ( active)
I would never recommend them passive .
Just my 2 p worth …
Yes - the S600 were very sensitive to set-up. In fact my present S800 are less sensitive to set-up, possibly due to lower resonant frequency in my room and being far heaver.
But to the S600, my notes say:
The distance from the rear of the spealer to the wall behind them as measured from the back of the speaker should be 34.2 mm.
Toe-in to center: 3mm as measured at the back of the speaker L&R sides.
Level the speaker (use the underside metal base and a spirit-level).
Have them relatively far apart but try to keep distance from side walls at a meter or more (if you have that) and preferably slightly different distances. They don’t work well close-togeter IMO have them apart on the long dimension of a room and with a structural wall behind.
Do not try placing concrete loosly as fill under a suspended floor or you will get awful results.
Either put them on a proper constructed solid floor - or reinforce your floor with wood (I used Oak tounge and groove running at right-angles to the house suspended floor with a layer of MDF glue and screwed in between and the to Oak floor then screwed atop with close-spaced screws to make a taught surface).
You may not be intending to just fill under a suspended floor with concrete, but if you are it is a warning it can turn-out bad and creates a dead lifeless sound as you can’t mix suspended floor and solid floors unless it is built-up from scratch or you just create a set of very low frequency resonances that interact badly with the speaker and room.
Also if the speakers have not been re-torqued - do that as it makes a huge difference.
Get the settings for S600 from Naim and make sure you only do this with a torque driver and never ever without setting the correct torque on the drivers.
The Bass drivers should be nominal 3nm but I found 2.95nm sounded obviously better on detail.
The BMR outer bolt should be 2nm, but I found 1.97nm better.
Never adjust the inner-circle of BMR bolts.
I do this - listen - then do another and iterate toward what sounds best. Too tight loses detail and too loose blurs detail, so there is a sweet-spot.
Loosen slightly a bolt then tighten to the desired torque and move in a circle around the drive unit - and not side-to-side across (even though the notes say to do that it is obviously worse).
The underside bolts all need their own torques and you need the Naim leaflet on that - worth doing as the connection of cabinet with the leaf-spring suspension should be correctly torqued or the speaker loses a lot of bass performance and ‘life’.
One you have done all that - you never need touch it again I found.
You need to experiment - my positions are what I found with my room.
Toe-in does make a big difference - do not use too much or the sound collapses and goes over-analytical sounding. Best to try them level first and then see how a small (tiny) toe-in adds focus - then more just ruins performance.
I have a slightly different room from the OP, my s600s are on the long wall, but I have a low ceiling and the side walls are not parallel. This is a benefit to sound quality.
My floor is constructed with compressed glass as a foundation, then a screed with underfloor hearing with limestone flagstones on top. I suppose it’s almost as good as a solid concrete floor for these speakers.
I’venot moved the speakers since the day they were installed; they are close to the wall with no toe-in. Ive not checked the torque but I don’t think they sound flat.
If they sound good then I’d not touch the torques.
You should only really need to do it once after purchase from new as the cabinet material slightly changes over the initial few months after manufacture - this is what my dealer told me and they initially came around and did all this about six months after I got my S600 pair.
I then experimented a year later and found I could get them tuned-up a bit and then just stayed like that for many years until I got the S800 pair. Then the same process with these and I have not touched then for some ten years. When they sound right it is obvious and best to leave them alone.
If you are still alive.